Assange, Bushnell and the Persecution of Whistleblowers and Martyrs

“The sad truth is that societies that demand whistleblowers be martyrs often find themselves without either, and always when it matters the most.” (Edward Snowden, 2015)

Edward Snowden at Artnet.

One of the greatest and most alarming hypocrisies of our time is governments have constructed massive police security states to monitor every move we make and freely gather data as invasions of our privacy and rights. While for its own self it shuns any such scrutiny by criminalizing whistleblowers, arbitrarily weaponizing the law and suspensions of human rights.

“BEFORE DONALD TRUMP began his run for president, there was a war against journalism in the United States. President George W. Bush used the Espionage Act and sought to jail reporters who refused to give up their sources, not to mention killing journalists in war zones. When President Barack Obama, a constitutional law scholar, came to power, he did so claiming that he and Joe Biden would represent the most transparent administration in history. But then reality set in. During his eight years in power, Obama’s Justice Department used the Espionage Act against whistleblowers more than all of Obama’s predecessors combined. They continued the Bush Justice Department’s war on journalists, including threatening to jail then-New York Times reporter James Risen if he did not testify against his alleged source.”— Journalist Jeremy Scahill,The Intercept

Whistleblowers and Martyrs suffer the full wrath of those exposed and threatened by truth. In the early days of Christianity Saint Sebastian became a most famous martyr. When Christianity was in its beginnings he was a prominent Roman soldier who converted to Christianity and was punished as a heretic. His persecutors shot his body with well placed arrows. Even so he survived only to be clubbed to death at a later date. Needless to say after his time Christianity emerged and was universally embraced.

Saint Sebastian, c. 1480-1490 etching by Martin Schongauer. Saint Sebastian survived the Roman firing squad that shot him with arrows during Roman emperor Diocletian’s anti-Christian genocide, about 288 CE.